An academic year of many uncertainties comes to an end

Kainat Sarfaraz and Sadia Akhtar

From being unable to attend school in person for most of the year to having to rely on online learning — an exercise that brought to the fore a glaring digital divide — the class of 2020-21 has been unlike any other till date. There were other novelties too. The academic session

NEW DELHI:

went on for 16 months — from end-march 2020 to endjuly 2021— on account of the Covid pandemic, and the batch became the first to graduate without appearing for the Board exams, which were cancelled also on account of the pandemic.

The year, in short, was challenging not just for teachers and students but also for education officials, including CBSE employees and school principals, who had to adapt to the “new normal”.

Mena Mittle, vice-principal of Modern Public School in Shalimar Bagh, said, “Teachers had to extend constant support to students during the year... The pandemic also heaped a lot of stress on students for whom the future appeared quite uncertain.”

Due to the revised assessment policy, schools had their work cut out for them while tabulating scores as they had to feed in marks of students keeping the moderation policy in mind. “While the portal (developed by CBSE to upload marks) calculated the weightage, schools had to feed in marks and ensure proper moderation,” Mittle said.

Deepa Chugh, a class 12 coordinator at The Indian School, who teaches political science, said teachers too struggled. “Connecting with students was difficult because not all could get their cameras on during online classes. Face-to-face interactions help us assess whether a student is understanding the concepts.”

CBSE officials conducted several webinars with schools to explain the moderation policy in detail and reduce any errors.

Dr Sanyam Bhardwaj, controller of examinations, CBSE, said that the comprehensive result compilation and tabulation system built by the board not only helped schools in verifying the Class 10 information but also in uploading the class 11 and 12 scores. “The system guided schools for moderation at every step,” said Bhardwaj.

Kunal Singh, 18, a student of RPVV in Nand Nagri who scored 91%, said he was happy with the result: “Studying remotely for an entire year is not easy... Despite the obstacles, we gave our best.”